摘要: |
Anytime, anywhere fulfillment. Next-day, same-day and even same-hour delivery. Exploding product variety and packaging choices. Hyper-localization. Personalization. Welcome to the age of omni-channel fulfillment, with its promise to serve every single consumer with what they want, when they want it-and how they want it. For retailers and manufacturers alike, the consumers ravenous appetite for speed and choice is making warehouses and distribution centers (DCs) much more central to the competitive equation. Yet most fulfillment operations were designed for a far less challenging era. This stark reality obliges chief executives and chief operating officers to actively envision the larger, more nuanced and more strategically vital role warehouses and DCs are playing in their future supply chain today-and will certainly play tomorrow. Fulfillment capabilities must now be counted among top strategic priorities for executive teams. Without question, those who ignore the future of warehousing risk repeated crises, challenges in meeting customer expectations, expensive work arounds and rushed retooling of this increasingly crucial link in the supply chain. |